Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Since I work fewer hours than Mr. Bee, it's my responsibility to take care of the "day time" chores. (It's a more than fair arrangement, trust me!) It's a simple, soothing routine that I enjoy immensely when I am not nauseous from the Little Bee growing inside me. In an attempt at homestead transparency, I figured I'd take you along on a day last week.

First thing in the morning, I start by calling Lula Mae into the barn and situating her in the stanchion for her morning feeding. A stanchion is a simple enough contraption with a bucket for feed, a lock for the goat's head and "hobbles" or ties for the feet of a milking goat.

Chloe trying out the stanchion. Grain! Omnomnomnomnom

The nice thing about a stanchion is that it keeps the goat from sitting down or moving while milking, ensuring sweet, clean milk. Even though Lula Mae isn't milking right now, we keep using the stanchion to keep her in the habit. This may look like a medieval torture contraption, but I assure you it's not! The time spent in the stanchion is usually less than 10 minutes and it's not uncomfortable for them.

Lula Mae getting ready to be milked (a few months back).
Our milk pail has a lid that covers the top while leaving a small opening for the milk to squirt into (not pictured).

After feeding Lula Mae, I head next door to the duck barn. There, I open the gate to their run so everyone can frolic and forage in our land all day long. (Okay, and the neighbor's land as of late. Something about a field full of dandelions that is proving irresistible to those Khaki Campbells who have no problem sliding through the fence.) Before stepping inside the house to collect eggs, I shut the run again so that if I startle Mama Duck when I go to collect eggs, she'll only flee to the run and then promptly return to her nest. Today, there are 10 eggs in the nest boxes and scattered in various corners of the house. Not bad.

Then I turn my attention to the chickens who are (still) preferring the inside of the house to the beautiful outdoors. I blame this on the fact that they have a very nice screened window that they can look out of and even feel the breeze through without ever having to get a feather wet in the rain. I also blame their obviously inferior intelligence; our ducks instinctively know it's better to roam outside!

The "baby" chickens, hanging out by their window. Instead of actually going outside.

I try to coax them down their ladder and out the door, but they refuse. Instead I startle our sitting Mama Duck down below. She'll come back shortly. I use this as an opportunity to check for new eggs that have been deposited in her nest that are far too late to be joining this hatching process. I find 2 eggs and put them in the egg basket.

Mama Duck angrily leaving the duck house, heading into the run.

I check everyone's water and food. That's it! I'm on my way for the day.

See? Just like I said, simple.

Mr. Bee gets home and I give him the daily report. We stand outside on the back deck, proud of all that we have.

Then we hear something. Chloe is whimpering loudly. Could Lula Mae be in labor early? Mr. Bee rushes toward the goat barn. I rush inside to pee (thanks Baby Bee!). When I finally make my way to the barn, everything is quiet. Lula Mae is on the stanchion eating, with Mr. Bee stroking her gently.

Mr. Bee: Looks like she's been here all day then. I think you forgot to get her out.

I'm horrified. Poor pregnant Lula Mae--unable to sit or lay down for an entire day!

Mr. Bee continues: And, uh, it looks like you locked Mama Duck in the duck house and run all day too. And locked the rest of the flock out, which means they didn't have access to their water.

Could it get any worse?

Mr. Bee continues again: And the extra eggs you found under Mama Duck? Yeah, they were actually part of the original batch she's been setting. I guess it's too late to put them back now!

Fortunately...the stress didn't induce labor in Lula Mae and she still happily gets on the stanchion each morning for her feed. As for the ducks, it had at least rained the night before so our flooded land made a nice watering hole for them. And Mama Duck? Well, she is still trying to add 2 more eggs to her nest each day, but at least we have 12 viable eggs remaining.

As Mr. Bee says: Sometimes you're the one stuck in the stanchion and sometimes you're the one that leaves the goat there.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

(watch the first 3 minutes and 40 seconds of this video for the most amazing poem;
you won't regret it!)

Mr. Bee and I aren't sure if we will have a son or a daughter. It's not the type of thing you set out to choose nor that you have much control over. So we figured we'd let it be a surprise. Well, that's one of the reasons we skipped finding out anyhow.

Listening to our favorite spoken-word poet Sarah Kay reminds us of the exciting journey we have ahead of us. We hope you will continue to follow along with us and understand now why it's been so quiet on the blog front as of late--I've been sick and Mr. Bee's been busy making sure everything on the homestead stays up and running. With nicer weather, fewer chores, and feeling a little bit better in these final months, I expect you'll be hearing more frequently from us again!

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

If you’ve been keeping up on this homestead tour, you’ll
know that Mama Duck is sitting on her clutch of eggs and Lula Mae is growing
wider with her expected kid(s) by the day. It’s a privilege to watch how these
mothers take care of their not-yet-arrived little ones and how their behavior
changes as time gets closer.
﻿﻿﻿﻿

Guarding her eggs and stuffing the nest (note how much bedding she's gathered)

The LulaBarrel is packing babies!

But I’d be remiss if I failed to tell you the other
anticipated arrival on our homestead. Yes, Mr. Bee and I are expecting our
first Baby Bee!

Baby Bee's first closeup!

We’ve waited a long time to share in this forum for a
variety of reasons, but now that it is so close, it doesn’t make sense not to share. It’s an exciting time and
I’m happy to be in the company of other expectant mothers. As my time draws
nearer, I am amazed at how similar all
animals act when nesting—including humans.

Let’s just hope Lula Mae and I don’t have too much in
common. Our due dates are 2 weeks apart. And we’re both planning on birthing at
home. =/ Did I mention she had some
ovulatory complications when we were trying to breed her?

We’ve had the goats for 7 months. I can’t believe it has
been that long! Lula Mae and Chloe add so much humor and joy to our lives, not
to mention milk, that it makes them worth the effort.

Lula Mae & Chloe in January

Our first half-gallon day!

Lula Mae (the mama goat) is an anxious, finicky goat that is
more serious than playful. She continually barks orders at her Chloe or me—if
I’m nearby. She’ll let me milk and boss her around in the barn, but as soon as
we are in the pasture, she thinks she is the boss. She scolds me for getting
out of sight or lagging behind. In case you haven’t seen it, just watch this
goats screaming like human video now. And yes, ours really do sound like this.

Here Lula is feasting
on some grain (which she gets because she is milking). Her soft undercoat from
winter has almost entirely disappeared.

Chloe is the opposite of her mother. She is playful and
stubborn. She is 1 year old and acts even younger. She still runs at full speed
and jumps all fours(!) onto Lula’s back to reach a high blackberry bramble or
just to hitch a ride.

Since our goats have so much to forage, we only supplement
their feed. They get 2 different kinds of hay and Lula gets grain. A few months
back however, we took Lula Mae to the breeder and due to some ovulation
complications, left her there for a few weeks. Chloe was alone and distraught.
Mr. Bee and I spent hours trying to comfort her. But when our presence didn’t
alleviate her distress, we, like any normal goat parents, turned to food to bribe
her. She refused handpicked blackberry leaves, rejected all produce, and even
stopped letting us hand-feed her hay. So we tried grain. The sweet,
high-calorie grain that Lula eats to make sure she is able to produce milk.
Well, Chloe loved it. For those few minutes, she’d stop crying and seem to
truly enjoy herself. And after a feeding she seemed somewhat calmer.

Chloe crying through the fence

And thus, we fed her. Sometimes in the milking stanchion
like we do with Lula. Sometimes straight out of our hands or from a bucket. A
little for breakfast, a snack here, a pity snack there and a hearty dinner.

By the time Lula came back, it was clear that we had created
a monster. A very large (10 pound over healthy weight) monster. With Lula back,
she stopped crying all the time but became obsessed
with grain. She was an addict, desperate to get her fix and willing to try
everything from coy looks to outright defiance to taste that sweet grain again.
Milking Lula Mae became a test of strategies to Chloe from vaulting over the
milking room walls or attempting to squeeze between the gate that separates the
milking room from the rest of the barn. Often it resulted in Chloe getting her
head stuck somewhere, when inevitably her now rollie pollie body refused to fit
through an opening. It was a rough transition.

"Who me?" Chloe trying to get into the bag of feed

All this to say, Lula Mae is pregnant and should be kidding
this summer. Hopefully she will have two babies (most common) but we will have
to wait and see. It’s intriguing to feel little hooves stretch the sides of her
belly. Chances are, I’ll be the one “on-call” when she delivers so I have to
start reading up on goat labor soon!

Chloe is off grain and down to a healthy weight again, but
still obsessed. Occasionally she’ll take advantage of a partially latched gate
to squeeze into the milking room to steal Lula’s serving. Hopefully, she’ll be
thrilled when we breed her next year and she can eat grain twice a day to help
her babies grow. Sigh.

Her old self again, but always hoping to earn a treat with that grin.

The goats have done an excellent job clearing out our
invasive blackberries and salmonberries. Their paddock used to be so thick with
vines that we had to cut a clearing around the barn so they could get out!
Soon, I will take you on a tour of their barn and pasture. Maybe I'll even show you Mr. Bee's homemade cheese!

New to us this year are chickens! Yes, 4 little chicks that
prove why duck-raising is both more enjoyable and more challenging than chicken
raising.

Here’s Tippy Canoe. She’s a buff orpington.Right now, she is at the top of the pecking
order, but also the biggest (most mature chicken) of the bunch.

Miss Tippy

Then we have HennyPenny and Lexie, the Barred Rocks. To me,
these are classic “farm” chickens with their wide behinds and speckled black
feathers. Henny Penny is also known as the Brave Barred as she rarely scatters
when I come by to feed them or go to pick them up.

Lex & Pen at the Front

Lastly, we have Eggy Peggy, a silver-laced Wyandotte. She’s
small now (younger) but will grow up to be decently sized chicken.

The littlest chicken of all - Eggy Peggy

They all will be medium to large birds with brown eggs. I’m
surprised at how soft they are. And how quiet. These things are church mice
compared to ducks! I also thought they were all dying in the first 48 hours because
they hardly drank any water and they were going through food at a rate that
made me wonder if they had worms. Nope. They are just chickens.

While daily care for them might be easier than our ducks,
they aren’t intelligent. But then, maybe that makes them all the more lovable...

A few months ago we
connected with a retiring duck farmer (at one point he raised 700+ birds on his
land) and purchased some of his flock. He was liquidating his Muscovies, so we
bought 23 birds with the intention of slaughtering most for meat and keeping a
few for breeding. The meat is leaner than mallard-descended ducks, but still
very good. We lost 5 due to a mystery that is now resolved thanks to an avian
expert (which, I will write about another day), butchered 14, and kept 4
females. Mrs. Little is all-black and looks like the Little described earlier.
Mrs. Brown is a beautiful brown and white that reminds me of a Britney Spaniel.
Then we kept 2 white and black speckled females, one of who we fondly call
Escapy (Esk-uh-pee) because, well, she is capable of escaping from anything or
anywhere.They don’t lay eggs quite yet,
but will soon. Instead of quacking, the females trill. It is a beautiful
noise—just listen. We will breed them with Little in the future, and
hopefully have a self-sustaining meat source that is very low maintenance. They
are less socialized than our other birds and are still getting used to the idea
that I feed the ducks kitchen scraps off the back porch. They often miss the
memo until everything’s been devoured.

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Little and Friends

The other muscovies... NOM/*tear*
(Seared duck breast on a bed of sweet potatoes & chanterelles with a cherry balsamic reduction)

Our last 5 ducks came around Easter as day-olds. They are
all females and all Khaki Campbells. As an experiment, we didn’t “hand-raise”
these babies and instead put them with the other ducks early on. They enjoy
following around any brown duck (Golden or Khaki Campbell) to the water, food,
or foraging, but particularly love cuddling close to Mama Duck. They gather
outside her nestbox during the day and attempt to guard her against anything
that comes near. When they are outside, they can be found stumbling as they run
down the hill and tripping over their long legs. They are as uncoordinated as
toddlers and as awkward as teenagers. Eventually, they will lay eggs too.

The babies following Goldie

And then there is Edgar (blind and/or brave duck). He's not new, as you may remember. but he deserves
his own spotlight. He’s still blind. He’s still a little neurotic. Yes, he
still walks in circles and can’t get in and out of the duck house on his own,
but he is lovely all the same. When Ms. Duck spent so long rehabilitating her
leg this winter, Edgar joined her to make sure she wasn’t lonely. When the baby
Khakis got introduced to the adult ducks, Edgar spent the first week with them
inside their house helping them get acclimated. And when the little girls from
down the street desperately want to hold and pet a duck, Edgar is the guy for
the job.

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning

And those, friends, are our 25 ducks/ducklings. We’ll let
you know if Mama Duck hatches her first clutch next month and make sure we post
pictures more regularly now that the weather is nice. J

Our homestead is ever expanding and changing. It seems
rather appropriate to provide a thorough update of who is who on the land and
who is expected in the coming months.Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!

First, we have our “original” flock(s) from last year. We
have 17 adult ducks, so they are a little difficult to gather and pose for a
group shot. I hope these suffice:

Family Photo

You’ll immediately recognize Alice and Ms. Duck, the large white
Pekins. Alice has maintained her Top-of-The-Flock status and can be regularly
found displaying her gorgeous (and incredibly
soft) self for everyone to see. Ms. Duck is still a little strange:
Standoffish with humans but desperately interested in being part of the flock.
She misses the social cues of the other ducks and marches to a different
drummer. She is sort of a “weak” duck with regular accidents (she once sprained
her leg flying into another duck in the middle of our icy winter and had to
spend 6 weeks rehabilitating in our garage), but balances our flock out and
makes us very glad she’s part of our family. Both lay white eggs of gargantuan
proportions every day or so.

The Glamorous Alice

The not-so-Glamorous Ms. Duck

﻿

Then there are the Khaki Campells. These are the babies that
arrived with Alice over a year ago in a straight run (mixed sex). We butchered
the males (except Muffin, our stud and Edgar) and kept the females. Along the
way, we lost our fair share (remember Jerome?). Now we are down to Splitfoot
and one other female who doesn’t have a name. They lay good sized white eggs
daily and are pretty social with us humans.

Splitfoot and Nameless

(stud)Muffin

Next come the Golden 300s. This is a hybrid variety that we
got for egg production. They look nearly identical to the Khaki Campbells but
have a darker wingstripe and a light brown facial stripe that the Khakis are missing.
We have 5 Golden females and 1 male (Bismarck). We have a light one named Goldie
who regularly squeezes through the fencing to wander among the goats or sneaks
into the neighbor’s yard to eat her fill of dandelions without competition. We
also have Mama Duck who has gone broody and is sitting her eggs as I type. It’s
amazing to watch her pull bedding into her already full nest box and nuzzle her
warm eggs. They lay a medium sized egg a day.

The Golden Girls with Bismarck Behind

Mr. Bee’s attempt to restore the world through breeding
of this “endangered” (aka rare, domesticated) breed? Ah yes. The Magpies.Well, we have 3 females that are currently
happy to be part of the flock. Don’t let their iridescent feathers or unique
patterns fool you into thinking they are docile beauty queens. These 3 ducks
make as much noise as our entire flock combined. Black Beak is the loudest and
serves as the appointed “spokes duck” for her breed. Next, there is Freckle
Face and Skinny Head. They usually stick together and produce an egg every day
or so. Although many flock raisers describe their meat as gourmet, we didn’t
like the taste and actually bartered the butchered males for other items. And
those supposedly green eggs? Try a white egg with a dark brownish-green (aka
baby poo) bloom to it. Not my favorite breed to say the least. We will be
finding another way to save the world—sorry Mr. Bee!

﻿

The Magpies Showing Their Backsides (typical...)

And what happened to the little Muscovies you may be wondering? Well, one got lost with Butry and the other has become quite the fixture on our homestead. Little, as we aptly named him at the time, is huge. He is the Alpha Male and loves to assert himself by opening his large beak wide and “hissing” or breathing very heavily since the male ducks can’t quack. He is friendly like a puppy, and follows me around while I do morning chores. He wags his big butt and fans his tail in hopes of a treat, then pants like a retriever while he waits. I love Little.

﻿

Little!!

To meet the ducks I haven't introduced you to yet, check out my next post.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Early on, my life was framed in hyper-vigilance and matted with a fat border
of fear. The glass covering was so thick you could hardly see the picture
underneath. Still, I worried it might shatter if some foreign, unpredictable
object or action came in contact at just the wrong/right time, in just the
wrong/right way.

I was terrified of doing the "wrong" things, of saying the
"wrong" things, and ultimately, being the "wrong" person.
The only encouragement I needed was an environment fraught with the
unpredictability and criticism hallmark of a family centered around addiction--from there,
my biology and temperament were happy to take over.

As I grew, those dreaded wrong/right things happened (sometimes by choice,
sometimes by mistake, sometimes by chance). Each time, the glass covering
indeed shattered. And each time, I would replace the glass, perhaps with a
lighter, less foggy version of its former self. But the fear never went away.

To this day, fear, or some iteration thereof (i.e. anxiety) is my most
commonly experienced emotion. I worry about meeting deadlines, about what I
said to a stranger in line at the grocery store, about being perceived as
incompetent, about whether my dishes are actually getting clean and whether I
am working hard enough in my relationships, all within a 5-minute time span of
an average day.

Note: It's impressive, really, when you take into account how much mental
coordination it requires to keep all of those things at the forefront of your
mind for instant recall. I suppose it is also exhausting, but do give me credit
where credit is due!

I have done well reducing the influence these "daily" fears have
on my life or my actions. I'm now more inclined to let them pass by unengaged
like clouds on a windy day rather than fixate on their shapes and try to make
meaning out of them. Instead, it's the big things that paralyze me.

Or should I say big thing, singular?

You see there is one thing I am terrified of still.

Joy.

Yes. You heard me right. (And if you are honest with yourself, you may be
equally afraid of this powerful emotion too.) As usual, researcher/storyteller Brene Brown put it into words before I could find my own, in a recent interview. As she puts it:

How many of you have ever sat up and thought, ‘Wow, work’s going good,
good relationship with my partner, parents seem to be doing okay. Holy crap.
Something bad’s going to happen'?...You know what that is? [It’s] when we lose
our tolerance for vulnerability. Joy becomes foreboding: 'I’m scared it’s going
to be taken away. The other shoe’s going to drop…' What we do in moments of
joyfulness is, we try to beat vulnerability to the punch.”

She goes on to say that when joy is in the moment or just around the corner,
instead of practicing gratitude and vulnerability, we
"dress-rehearse" tragedy. I'm very familiar with tragedy and trauma.
Most of us are in some capacity. I know what it is like to hurt more deeply and
more fully than I ever imagined humanly possible and wise enough to know the
depth of future pain is not bound by the threshold I've previously experienced.
I am more comfortable hiding from my vulnerability through known and
self-induced fears than sitting with the joy that is inside me knowing that at
any time it may end and bring about worse hurt than I've known to date.

Of all the secrets I know about myself, this is one I am most ashamed of. It
is the one that keeps me from moving forward from my past, achieving
my personal goals, and ultimately relishing the beautiful life I know I already
have.

Now, its usefulness is no longer as relevant to my life and it's time to
find a way to let it go.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Perhaps I, like the rest of Americans, have been subconsciously influenced by all the candy hearts and chocolate boxes. I try not to be too consumer-focused, but it is true that I've spent the last month contemplating love. And here it is Valentine's Day and I've got a love-filled post ready to go. Coincidence? Perhaps. All I can say is that correlation doesn't indicate causation and you never know the other factors influencing the outcomes. Right?

﻿﻿

Zelda reference or otherwise, bringing your heart along for love is the difficult part of the journey.

In any case, I'm beyond expounding the wonders of puppy love and cheap love wrapped in low-quality tissue paper. I'm talking about Radical Love. It's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. And you know, in the funny little way that you feel small yet as expansive as the Earth, when you practice it.

It is the silent chant inside your heart, as you stare at the screen watching a heartbeat and listening inattentively to the doctor speaking her foreign language of abbreviations. "Please don't die, please don't die..." is all you hear inside.

It happens when, after you hear that dreaded diagnosis, the nightmares return, recovery gives way to relapse, or life requires you to move in a direction that you otherwise wouldn't, you step out of the shame and anger, and say, "I can do this. We can do this. We get through things. Remember?"

It courageously surfaces when you decide to take on the great risk of vulnerability for the equally great reward of authenticity. You purchase baby clothes before the doctors are certain the life inside you is "viable" outside your protective womb. You get excited about the great interview and let yourself tell a few friends about its potential. You open your heart to a foster child and come to view that child as your son, before you know if they'll even stay another week. All the while, you remind yourself that allowing yourself to move forward doesn't diminish or increase your sorrow if things don't go as planned.

It is not some "name it, claim it" doctrine that guarantees great outcomes if you ask right or act like they are coming your way. Nor is it willful ignorance of the facts, or a belief that you'll beat the odds this time (because, trust me, I have a tendency to lose even when the odds are in my favor). In fact, it doesn't impact the outcome at all.

Radical love is knowing everything you can know, leaving room for everything you don't know yet and may never learn, and choosing to be vulnerable enough to love wholeheartedly anyhow.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

The overly analytical part of me disagrees and insists on refuting my point before I've begun. Everything costs something. Even wonderful, beautiful things come at a price. The payment is often time or money, and at minimum, the cost of any now foregone opportunities that exist because you chose an alternative.

I digress.

I mean to say that sunrise requires almost nothing of you. It gives without hardly asking in return.

It does not demand of you the herculean task of pulling a giant rope to hoist the sun into the sky like the raising of the grand curtain at the playhouse. It does not leave you wondering whether the sun will indeed show up for her morning debut or worrying that today the moon will shine brighter than its daytime counterpart. It doesn't matter whether you've cursed its summer heat or resented its lack of warmth and compassion during these dark winter months. It will continue on in the same monotonously beautiful way regardless.

You are free to tilt your head toward the Eastern sky, breathe the fresh mountain air deep into your warm lungs and relax as you lean into your insignificance knowing that you played no part in the making of this routine wonder.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Did I ever mention that the former owners of our house, really, really liked yard "decorations"? This picture doesn't do their love for tacky ornaments justice.

Take this photo and extrapolate.

Imagine a complete collection of cow memorabilia. (double this)

Imagine how every "special place" might have it's own unique set of decorations. For instance, you can picture a set of "fairy furniture," arranged comfortably under a large tree, complete with a pink rocking chair (pictured above) as a perfect resting place for any mythical creature tired of flapping its wings to relax.

Imagine how the owners' love for "things" like this may have crept into the windows and crevices of our house and how interesting it must be to pull open the blinds in the spare bedroom, only to discover a set of twirling crystals wrapped in wire and attached so firmly to the blinds that it requires near demolition to remove.

Imagine my surprise, a year into home ownership, when we explore a new area of the property and come across another "find." Most recently, I unearthed a wooden patriotic eagle that doubles as a wind spinner (yes, I looked it up, that is the proper term.) I imagine it looking strikingly like this one in it's glory days...

Imagine your dear partner who has a fancy for rhyming (and real poetry, much to his credit), and a particular penchant for memorizing anything non-useful, discovering these posters with the caption below.

Monday, January 14, 2013

It's been quiet around this electronic homestead, but don't for a moment think it's been quiet in our physical world. Generally, I like to write about things that are solid, or at minimum, unsettled things whose uncertainty I can count on. Instead, life has consisted of "we'll-have-to-see" or "we-won't-know-till-we-get-there" moments, with a whole lot of decision-making thrown in. Over the coming days and weeks, I'll find the space to write about it all, and hopefully whether through this process or through time, will find solid footing I want.

One thing I know for sure is that homesteading takes you over, and over again, through the full cycle of life.

We recently lost two of our ducks. Butry, one of the big white ones, and one of "The Littles" that we hand-raised. It was torture. I went outside one Saturday morning to let the Ducks out and I counted. But before I could finish counting, I knew they were not all there.

Each morning, four quacking ducks gather at my feet waiting for treats and love. This morning there were only two. "Why couldn't it have been one of the other ducks?" I asked myself over and over again as I struggled to make peace with the truth. You know the outcome. You know it already happened, but somehow you want to change it so it's just a little bit better. A little more palatable. Why I couldn't it have been a duck without a name?

I was scouring our property, scouring every bush and suspecting every owl that dare cry. I had to find them.
I searched each night and each morning. I would look into the thick forest and hope any moment the ducks would come waddling out, having had a great adventure but ready to return home. I was consumed with a longing I've rarely known.

In the end, I found something, though not what I was hoping for. The neighbors who sold us the goat, called us and asked if he had a home for their now-lonely Peckin, whose flock-mates had become the recent dinner of a raccoon or dog. We arranged the adoption, and are grateful for the addition. Our flock-family feels a little more complete, but I think there's still room for more.